Demo Guide to Kailasa

[Endoperez]

Saxon said:
This nation seems to be all about missiles. I have put together a pretender with fire and air and plan to research up to Flaming Arrows and Wind Guide. The national mages are not well set up for those spells, thus the pretender with those paths.

You could get a lucky random, then a forged item and Phoenix Pyre and the Air equivalent, but that would come fairly late in the game. That is why I am counting on a pretender who can back up at least one army with the spells.

What are people’s thoughts on this idea, a powerful missile force made up of cheap archers that hit all the time with flaming missiles? Any other ideas for boosting their power?

Also tied to this nation, let me ask for thoughts on a related issue. My immediate neighbor Helheim, who have troops with good defense and protection, as well as shields, if memory serves. They are very good at dealing with missile fire and deal with my infantry rather well, rapidly moving on to the archers. Until I get Flaming Arrows, how do I deal with the heavy amour nations?

As a final note, I look forward to seeing the monkeys throw sticks and stones with Wind Guide and Flaming Arrows! Sure, it is not sensible, but it is such a cool idea!

Helheim does actually have nice protection for EA. Prot 12 is good for EA, and they have both shields AND mirror image effect from Glamour. Someone'll probably tell you that Helheim is overpowered and scary and will kill you whatever you do, but actually that only happens if you play against one of the more skilled players.

If you click on the random, you'll notice that neither Yakshas or Yakshinis can get Air or Fire random, only one of Water, Earth, Astral and Nature. Some of their national summons come with Air. Kinnara is the first one IIRC, a flying A2H2 or H3 mage or so. You'll have more troubles getting Fire.

Phoenix Power is the Fire booster. Phoenix Pyre has altogether different use... Storm Power, the air booster, only works during Storms which hamper missiles, so going that rout won't actually give you anything.

[Saxon]

As always, the Northerner has good information! Sorry, I got the Phoenixes mixed up and did not realize I can find out more about the randoms. Very good to know.

Helheim does look pretty good, but until my full version shows up, I can not see the costs of their units. I suspect there is some balance in that area, as their numbers seem pretty low in general. They can be beaten back, you just have to work a bit harder at it. I will be playing more with the earth spells that slow troops down, as the monkey’s have lots of earth magic and slowing down charging troops is generally useful for archers. An extra volley or two on Helheim would be nice…

Hmm, no air booster spell without storms... However, if I can summon a A2, that is enough for Wind Guide. I forget the exact effect of WG, so I am not sure how much it boosts precision. I used it in Dom2 and was not amazed, it was Flaming Arrows that impressed me more. Still, I am looking for any ideas on how to boost my archers. The sheer cheapness of the little monkeys can lead to massive armies and if I can improve their effectiveness, even a small percentage, the nation could be very dangerous. I suspect beta testing found this strategy too powerful, thus the limiting of the national mages getting those paths. I will also look for mercenaries with air or fire.

[dirtywick]

Saxon said:
This nation seems to be all about missiles. I have put together a pretender with fire and air and plan to research up to Flaming Arrows and Wind Guide. The national mages are not well set up for those spells, thus the pretender with those paths.

You could get a lucky random, then a forged item and Phoenix Pyre and the Air equivalent, but that would come fairly late in the game. That is why I am counting on a pretender who can back up at least one army with the spells.

What are people’s thoughts on this idea, a powerful missile force made up of cheap archers that hit all the time with flaming missiles? Any other ideas for boosting their power?

Also tied to this nation, let me ask for thoughts on a related issue. My immediate neighbor Helheim, who have troops with good defense and protection, as well as shields, if memory serves. They are very good at dealing with missile fire and deal with my infantry rather well, rapidly moving on to the archers. Until I get Flaming Arrows, how do I deal with the heavy amour nations?

As a final note, I look forward to seeing the monkeys throw sticks and stones with Wind Guide and Flaming Arrows! Sure, it is not sensible, but it is such a cool idea!

One way to deal with them is to cast spells that destroy their armor and hold them in place. Armor of Achilles and later Destruction should help your arrows land more often, and Earth Grip and Later Earth Meld, as well as Tangle Vines, Vine Arrow, Sleep, and Sleep Cloud will pin them down. You might also consider Mind Burning them too, that ignores armor. Bringing Bandar Archers who have long bows will make the battles shorter too.

But, to make the Flaming Arrows/Wind Guide you'd probably have to design a pretender especially for it. It's not a bad idea as they do have the archers to do it, but I think there's better nations for it. However, the spells listed above that help hold the enemy army in one place and destroy their armor is pretty similar and easier to do.

[Saxon]

That is a nice list of “slow ‘em down and wear them down” spells, I shall see what I can do. If you have a reasonable number of infantry, even heavy infantry from random provinces, their screening job is a lot easier if only half the enemy hits at once and half their armour is gone.

You say other nations are better at an archer based strat. Who did you have in mind? Also, given the tilt towards archers with the monkeys, I was wondering if you saw another way forward with them that did not use a lot of archers? Were you thinking lots of summons in the mid and late game? I am playing with ideas on this nation right now and welcome everyone’s thoughts!

[PDF]

I'm still experimenting on how to make Kaisala EA sacred "usable" : with 1 (!!) prot it's not that obvious, plus the fact that the archers don't benefit from the Fire blessing (it only affects melee weapons...).

So currently the only idea I have is to have F9-blessed Yavanas made survivable by Protection (from Guru), Body Eth (Yogi), then Iron Warriors (Yaksha).
Not very effective, nor very fast, and difficult to properly succeed as you rely on AoE1 buffs ...
And even then they can be easily slaughtered by any sustained archer fire ...

As for Yavanas archers they are just overpriced longbowmen with very good precision but no armor, I think I'd rather field 4 Atavis Archers vs 1 Yavana for the same cost.
As Kaisala has no easy access to Wind Guide and more importantly to Flaming Arrows I don't think you can rely on archer strategies.

Do I miss stg ?

[dirtywick]

What I meant was the Flaming Arrows/Wind Guide strat, but none of them are available in the demo (I think). Man is always a good choice for an archer nation as they can cast Wind Guide, and Machaka can mass cheap archers and they have fire picks so Flaming Arrows is easy to cast and has a good effect. An archer strat is viable with Kailasa, you just have to play it differently or build a pretender for it.

And the Bandar Swordsmen isn't a bad heavy infantry, you might find better but odds are it'll be a while before you can recruit anything better in mass.

[Saxon]

There has got to be a way to get the archers going. After all, what can we do otherwise? I agree, the sacreds are less than ideal, the protection is rough. My pretender has air 4, so I get that blessing that sheilds them from 20% of arrows, but that only helps the archers. Their infantry is nothing special, which is why I am trying to get the swarms of archers up and running.

I must say, the swarm of archers does make a real mess of the other nations with low protection, it is those damn people with metal sheilds...

[Nerfix]

Kailasa's sacreds have Awe and semihigh defence though, IIRC.

[Endoperez]

W9 bless gives Yavana Archers 1.5 longbow attacks with their higher precision compared to 3.5 attacks of Atavi, or almost 2 bandar. It mightn't be cost-effective, but I used them for Hold&Attack. Awe and high defense worked well enough until my enemy recruited insane amounts of Archers, and then I lost.
The lesser Death effect, increased amounts of afflictions, works with ranged weapons. That might work too, but Kailasa's access to various Astral spells and Petrification can deal with most SCs; they don't really need the minor boost Death would provide.

Kailasa has access to very good sacred units in the Gandharva of Conjuration 5. They are expensive, but have wonderful protection, especially for EA.

[Saxon]

Sorry, no report on Wind Guide. I got Atlantis, Tein Chi and Helheim, each attacking on a different front and my game folded…

However, I did want to report that the Bandar infantry, the one with high protection due to amour, held up very well. I think I have been under rating them and in EA, they are an excellent unit. I was able to face down Helheim several times, even though their infantry is also excellent.

I also found the Luck and Body Ethereal spamming with the cheap mages to be quite effective for all classes of units. As I had the archers up front with the infantry, the spells hit everyone and in a close battle, it rapidly becomes apparent who has received the spell. It may be viable to use blessed infantry with awe and these support spells to good effect. Protection also seemed to take effect at longer ranges, which was helpful once the Hold in Hold and Attack was over.

The “slow them down” spells tended to be of limited value, as the range was short and I rarely had a mass casting of the spell. However, I did not get to experiment much with this and may have missed good spells.

Still looking for a solid strategy for this nation, particularly a good use of the cheap archers, suggestions welcome.